Optometry ballot question allowed to advance
A petition seeking to allow optometrists and eyeglass retailers to operate in large retail stores like Walmart can move ahead after the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected an effort to stop it Tuesday.
The high court’s decision is a victory for Oklahomans for Consumer Freedom, which has lobbied for the change.
The Oklahoma Association for Optometric Physicians challenged the other group’s efforts to place the matter on a ballot, arguing its effects on optometrists and opticians violated the Oklahoma Constitution. Under the constitution, state questions can embrace only one subject.
“Whereas here — two separate and distinct, though interrelated occupations are impacted — we find that no unconstitutional logrolling has occurred,” wrote Justice Tom Colbert, using a term for placing multiple subjects on one ballot question.
Colbert compared the petition to a 1994 initiative that would have imposed term limits on Oklahoma members of Congress. Opponents challenged it, claiming it encompassed two separate occupations: senators and representatives. But the Supreme Court ruled at the time that the petition was constitutional because it centered on one subject: congressional term limits.
“Turning to the challenged initiative petition here — the proposed measure impacts two separate professions, both relating to the provision of services for eye care health,” Colbert wrote. “Yet, each profession is reliant upon the other.”
Colbert was joined in his opinion by Vice Chief Justice Noma Gurich and Justices Yvonne Kauger, James Edmondson, John Reif and Patrick Wyrick. Justice James Winchester did not take part in the decision. Chief Justice Douglas Combs dissented.
Combs wrote that the petition amounts to logrolling because “it presents voters with an unpalatable all-or-nothing choice by simultaneously loosening restrictions on very different professions that have separate regulatory concerns.” “The differences between the two roles are fairly stark,” he added, comparing optometrists and opticians to dentists and denturists.
Tuesday’s ruling allows proponents of the change to continue collecting signatures with a goal of placing the matter on a November ballot. Jason Ellen, a Tulsa optometrist and president-elect of the optometry group opposed to the change, said eye doctors will now begin educating patients and voters about their position.
“My partners and I perform surgeries, diagnose and manage chronic eye diseases, and can detect life-threatening conditions,” he said. “The right place to do that is a medical clinic, not a gigantic grocery and hardware store.”